only words bleed
by concreteskies
Summary: Season 8 AU in which the gunshot wound triggers Beckett's PTSD after she leaves and she calls Castle.


_And if you hurt me_ _  
_ _That's okay, baby, only words bleed_ _  
_ _Inside these pages you just hold me_ _  
_ _And I won't ever let you go_

 _Wait for me to come home_

 _-_ _Photograph, Ed Sheeran_

* * *

The place is cold at night. It's October, the air hangs heavy over the city and the darkness is shaped like crystals. Cold and clear and full of edges.

She got a double bed even though she specifically asked for a single and the empty space next to her could very well kill her.

There hasn't been a second in which she hasn't second-guessed her decision, in which she hasn't turned and twisted the facts around, looking for a hiding spot. Is it too much to ask for just a tiny loop hole? They've always been very good at folding in on each other, she's sure they could fit.

But there's nothing and she misses him so fiercely. It's like the missing itself has become a solid thing inside her chest, how it claws and curls until it feels like the confines of her ribs aren't quite enough to hold it in.

Her phone is charging on the nightstand next to her and she reaches for it, opens her gallery and flips through pictures.

It's mostly selfies he took without asking permission. Him smiling brightly and her pretending to be annoyed. Her smiling at him. Them both smiling so wide it seems too bold. Like maybe they had been daring fate with their happiness. Like their smiles were yelling things like, "come on, we can take anything."

She thought they could.

She still does.

But it's not enough anymore to keep him alive.

Her thumb hovers over his number for a few seconds before she shuts it off.

She needs sleep.

* * *

Her dreams are bizarre, twisted things. Green meadows, blue skies, white blouses stained red.

She can't breathe.

 _She can't breathe._

There's a hole carved into her chest, leaking blood and more and she can't breathe.

She wants to call out for him, wants him to press his hands on her chest, to fix her up. But he's not there. He's not even a shadow.

Her eyes open and the room is still black. She can feel her heart drumming against her ribcages, against the dome of her mouth, against her teeth, like it's trying to claw its way out. Its own way of saying, "I don't belong here, I want to go home."

Her fingers fumble with the light switch and the naked light bulb on the ceiling flickers on. It's white, bright and casts the room into harsh contours.

She's still gasping for breath, fingers wrapped around the blankets so tightly her knuckles are turning as white as the sheets. Even through the fabric her nails leave crescent-shaped indents in the soft skin of her palms.

White fabric, red blood, red, red, red.

Her fingers let go of the blankets, come up to her chest and unbutton her night gown. The stitches are uneven, ugly, little things. How many times can you patch yourself together before you become more scar tissue than skin?

Her index finger ghosts over the stitches, trembling against the wrecked flesh.

Her breaths come out as whimpers, something just before screaming. There are other people staying at this motel. She can't do this.

She cannot do this.

Her head falls back against the wall, her mind trying to recollect the words Doctor Burke used to tell her.

"Remember to breathe, count to 4 on the inhale..."

Her breathing is still rushed, breaks from her lungs with a kind of momentum that threatens to break her ribs.

It's not working. It never did.

The gunshot wound on her abdomen pulls in on strings rooted at her heart and it fucking hurts.

"Castle," she breathes out and then. "Please."

He's not here.

And she doesn't know how to hold herself.

Her hands reach the phone on her nightstand, rip it almost violently from the charger and dial his number without glancing at the screen even once.

He answers on the first ring.

"Kate?"

Her voice comes up empty, lips unable to wrap around the vowels anymore.

"Kate, are you okay?"

"Castle," it's too high, too desperate and she hates herself for not even making it a single night.

"Where are you?"

* * *

He takes 15 minutes to arrive at her room. Fifteen minutes of pacing the miniature length between the door and the bed over and over. There's still a tremor caught in her fingers and she still flinches at every sound and every second breath on her lips is shaped around the word _please._

She practically flings the door open when he knocks, blanket wrapped around her shoulders and hair wild.

He doesn't ask; he doesn't have to. He just wraps around her and everything goes still.

His breath falls against her neck, all soft and soothing and his palms are against her back, sliding up and down, careful against each rug of her spine.

He's watchful of the still delicate wound on her abdomen and she wishes he wasn't. So she presses against him as tightly as possible, pulls him closer and closer until the end of her becomes the beginning of him. Just the way it should be.

The wound screams at the contact but it's almost soothing to finally have the pain mean something.

"I'm sorry," the words tumble from her lips at their own accord. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry." It's like she's living and breathing apology by now.

"It's okay."

"I shouldn't have called," she breaks around those simple syllables. "It's not fair."

"It's okay," he says against her ear and she knows that tears are spilling on his shirt then.

When she starts sobbing he just moves them to the bed, lowers her down without ever breaking contact.

They remain on the covers until her breaths start to settle and the fist inside her chest unclenches and loses at least a little of its ferocity. She's dimly aware of his fingers at her back, spelling words she can't follow, how his lips are at her neck and his entire frame wrapped around her.

She doesn't want to look up at him. She doesn't want to look into his eyes and see goodbye.

But of course he tilts her chin up, waits until their eyes meet and smiles at her. (That smile that is a little sad and a little crooked and so very, very him it almost knocks her out.)

"We'll be okay," he says and his tone leaves no room for doubt. "You'll be okay."

"Castle-"her fingers come up to grace his cheeks. "I'm so sorry."

"I'm so sorry." Her thumb skates along the lines of his lips. "But I can't be responsible for your death Castle, I could- I would never recover from it. I just can't take it." The panic is starting to manifest itself again and he wraps around her a little tighter, fingers curling in her hair, untangling the mess.

He doesn't really know what she's talking about but the pieces are starting to fall together. He had been turning them around in his mind over and over ever since she left. What he could've done wrong. What could have caused her to leave him. He's been thinking about the case too. Of course he has. The way her friends had been murdered. The people that had saved his life too. How she had lost again and again. How she seems to just want to stop losing people for once, even if it breaks them into pieces.

"I know you want to keep me safe, but Kate it's killing me," he's speaking gently, unsure of this new ground they are tiptoeing on. "What happened to us being a team, Kate? I know we can work this out. We always do. But you have to give me a chance."

"Castle-"

"No, Kate-"he hesitates for a second. "Do you love me?" the question is asked so gently, his voice so very small. (His voice has never been small.)

"Of course I do, you know I do," she rushes out. New tears are spilling from her eyes, lips crack open around the salt and it burns and it hurts because she loves him but there's nothing she can do about it.

"Then I'm not safe no matter how far away you are," he whispers, fingers reaching out to wipe away the stray tears on her cheeks.

"Castle-"she shakes her head, buries herself deeper into his palm and into his chest. Just closer into him. She needs him close tonight.

"I know," his lips are moving so close to hers as he speaks, it's like the words don't even touch the air before she absorbs them. "And I know you can't let this go, but what I'm saying is, please, just don't let me go either," he's begging now, eyes wide and pleading.

"Please Kate, you know I won't stay away."

And oh does she know. He's always been this infuriating, annoying, wonderful man that refused to give up on her, that refused to let go. And she loves him so much for this but at the same time she prays that just for once he will do whatever it takes to keep himself safe.

She wraps her still shaking arms around him as he goes on speaking. "I never could. And even though at the beginning you pretended to not like it; I think we're past that," he sounds so insecure when saying it and it hurts her somewhere deep down to even think that she could actually not want him close. She wants him with her so badly that her entire being trembles with the weight of it.

"Castle-"

"I don't think I'm actually capable to stay away from you," he smiles then, a little crooked, and gestures from him to her. "We're like magnets." His eyes widen dramatically on the words and she laughs despite herself.

"Oh god," she groans a little but she's still smiling. And that's how it's always been for them hasn't it? Him staying and making her smile through it all.

"Just please don't send me away, Kate. I'd wait for you, of course I would," he looks at her for a second, more serious than she has ever seen him. "You know I would. In all these years you've taught me a great deal about patience."

A small smile spreads on her lips again and she scoots closer again, presses her lips against his jaw line.

"But please don't make me," he says more quietly now.

"They'll kill you."

"We can take them." Conviction drips heavy from his voice and she pushes herself up again so she can look at him.

"I don't know, Castle. I just don't know that we can," her voice threatens to break again, torn up by the impossibility of this all.

"Can we just- can you just hold me tonight and we figure things out in the morning?"

"Do you promise to still be here in the morning?"

Her eyes are so soft when she says, "I promise." He kisses her then because it's the only thing he can do really, sips the promise from her lips and tightens his hold on her frame.

She settles against him then, head resting on his chest, hair sprawled out and eyes slipping closed.

"Do you want the lights off?" he asks gently, fingers drawing unknown patterns onto her back again.

"Could we leave them on?"

"Of course." She can hear the rumble of his voice from where she is lying on his chest. It's quiet and calm and so very him.

"Could you keep talking?"

"What do you want me to talk about?"

"I don't care."

"Okay. So have I ever told you the story of how I fell out of a tree when I was eight years old?"

* * *

AN: I wrote this weeks ago but was too scared to put it up until now. It was originally intended to be a post-ep for 8x02 but I guess it works in any time frame after that episode really. I hope you liked it:*

Twitter: concreteskies

Tumblr: dancingontiptoes


End file.
